A California high school track star found out the hard way last weekend that some rejoicing may be best left for private. Sophomore Clara Adams of Salinas came in first on Saturday in the 400-meter race in the state's high school championships, clocking a 53:24 time. Just seconds after nabbing that title, however, it was stripped away from her. The reason? Clara's dad, David Adams, who also serves as her sprint coach, told her after the race she was "on fire," prompting the teen to celebrate by taking a fire extinguisher her father was holding and spraying her own shoes with the fire-retardant foam contained within, per the Mercury News.
Video circulating online shows an announcer's amused reaction to the incident, though you can't see Clara actually spraying the extinguisher. But California Interscholastic Federation officials didn't see the humor in Clara's antics—just moments after Clara won the race, they disqualified her for unsportsmanlike conduct, took away her newly earned state title, and awarded it to another athlete. Adams says his daughter wasn't on the track itself when she set off the fire extinguisher, and "the opponents were gone," per USA Today. "That was our moment of celebration . ... The crowd went crazy, they loved it ... but those few guys in those jackets took offense to it, didn't like it, and made a decision based off emotions."
To make things worse for Clara, because she'd been reprimanded for unsportsmanlike conduct, she wasn't allowed to run in the 200-meter race she'd been expected to place in at the same meet. "I'm disappointed and I feel robbed," she tells USA Today. "They took my moment away from me." She adds: "I worked so hard for that title." KSBW reports that the public seems to be Team Clara: In an online poll of its viewers, the station found that nearly 90% of respondents took issue with Clara's title being stripped from her.
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